Don Savage
Headquarters, Washington, D.C. May 24,
1994
(Phone: 202/358-1547)
RELEASE: 94-81
NASA AND AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION HONOR JAMES A. VAN ALLEN
NASA and the American Geophysical Union (AGU) honored
pioneering space scientist Dr. James A. Van Allen, Professor
Emeritus at the University of Iowa in a ceremony on his 80th
birthday. The ceremony was held at the AGU's 75th anniversary
meeting in Baltimore, Md., today.
NASA presented Dr. Van Allen with an original computer painting
commemorating his distinguished half-century career studying
planetary magnetospheres and cosmic rays. Dr. Van Allen is most
well-known for his discovery of the belt of radiation around the
Earth that bears his name. His radiation-measuring equipment
aboard the first successful American satellites, Explorers 1 and
3, launched in 1958, provided data for the first space-age
scientific discovery -- the existence of a doughnut-shaped region
of charged particle radiation trapped by the Earth's magnetic
field.
Dr. Van Allen and his team also provided instruments for other
NASA missions including energetic charged particle detectors
aboard the Venus-bound Mariner 2 and Mars-bound Mariner 4, an
energetic charged particle detector on the Explorer 35 (the first
American spacecraft to orbit the Moon), and energetic charged
particle detectors aboard the Jupiter-bound Pioneers 10 and 11.
Dr. Van Allen's instruments aboard Pioneer 10 contributed to the
discovery of the magnetosphere and radiation belts of Jupiter and
the radiation belts of Saturn. In addition to studying Jupiter
and Saturn, Dr. Van Allen and his team used Pioneer 10 and 11 data
to study the galactic cosmic rays in the solar system.
The AGU's Space Physics and Aeronomy Section also sponsored a
special Van Allen Symposium featuring invited speakers on past
accomplishments, recent important results and future prospects in
a number of areas in which Dr. Van Allen has made significant
contributions.
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